Been a Little Busy

Been on a bike building bender as of late.
Here's a hand full of the bikes I've been working on.

Zak Ball ordered this bike in sour apple green.
Single speed 29er with the possibility of parole, in the form of cable routing and derailleur hanging.

It's taken about three years for the bike industry to sit up, take notice, and promptly "invent" swinging dropouts of their own. I'm surprised its taken as long as it has.

If you want USA made 4130 cro-moly quality, designed and built by bike nerds for bike nerds, ask your builder for Black Cat dropouts. Or ask me for your next bike.

On that note: try and find a better pop song than this. You can't.

It's Not British Loafing Green

John Merriam in San Luis Obisbo wanted a race bike.

Extra light dropouts (Black Cat exclusive) with titanium bolt kit.
Deluxe race tube set.
Light but stiff in all the right ways.

Not to mention the Lotus team colors.

Don't git no sweeter.

What Constitutes "Monster Cross"?

A quick handling yet stable geometry equally at home tearing up singletrack, laying it down on a two hour road climb and everything in between?
Check.

Room for 45c knobbies? Fenders? Three bottle mounts?
Check. Check. Check.

Fully sealed tubeset (like all Black Cat bicycles) ready for any weather mother nature can dish out (and you're willing to leave the house in)?
Check.

This one comes in "Ranger Danger Green" for Reverend Dick.

We have pretty different tastes in music, me and the Rev, but we can agree on the Decemberists. Everytime i hear this song i think of the those poor kids of his being scared (and possibly scarred) by his outlandish tales of whalers, pirates, ghosts, werewolves, and whatever else can make a kid nervous on campouts.

Twenty Six Inches With Twenty Seven Gears

What's this? A mountain bike with regular sized wheels and a full compliment of gears?
Where's the niche?

As it turns out, a regular hardtail mountain bike is somewhat of a novelty these days.

Five inches of travel up front sounds like a good plan for the rocky, fast trails of San Luis Obispo county, one of my old stomping grounds.
Dominic will be piloting this here bike.

Brown Power

Dave Sisamis from Ohio ordered up this one by nine, twenty nine inch wheeled bike.

Being the owner of a pizza joint, the natural choice for color was root beer.

It's been a couple posts since i subjected you to my terrible taste in music, but your respite is over! Don't fool yourself, The Marked Men are the real deal.

Lean and Mean

In some ways one speed 'cross bikes are simple, beautiful, and fun to ride. In other ways they are like eating soup with a slotted spoon. Gotta go fast and it seems like it's nothing but chunks.

I really like the baby blue with orange. Makes your eyes go wonky if you look too hard.

Custom, one-off dropouts. Machined and filed by hand.
The slot is angled so you can change your gear ratio without messing with your brakes.

This one is staying right here in Santa Cruz.

Grey Ghost

Mike Adamski, from Durango Colorado just got this in the mail the other day.

He sends me pictures of his local trails on the regular. Makes me jones for the BIG mountains y'all have out there.

Three tones of grey and a bit of sanding the letters. Its got a bit of a faded thing going.
Understated is the new bling.

El Gato Blanco

Dan Atkins of Linthicum, Maryland will be riding this here machine.

He spends some time at the Bike Doctor.

Hopefully he'll spend some time on his new bike in the woods.

The heart was Dan's idea, nice touch.

Rocket From The Crypt

is always on rotation at Black Cat World Headquaters.

That one and this one from "Circa: now!",

recorded over 15 years ago, and still as good as ever.

Little rough 'round the edges

This bike is for Mike Busch in Ventura, California.

He wanted something that was raw, maybe a little rough.

I ended up doing a wash with thinned out paint, sanded a few spots,

added some words, and clear powder coated the whole thing.

Came out pretty cool, i think.

Off With Their Heads has spent some time on the shop's speakers as of late.
Check them out.

Blood Simple

Jeff asked for blood red with a black on black panel.

We talked about maybe doing more panels on the seat tube or the stays, but it was a shame to cover up such a cool color. Kept it clean and simple.

A fork painted to match never hurt anyone.

Been in a serious Lungfish phase in the shop.

There is not much on the innerwebs about them.

This is the best i could find.

Andrew's Mariposa

It's hard to tell how good this metallic orange came out if you're not looking at it in the sun, in person.

It's really hard to capture how much time and effort goes into these frames. From the hand bent stays, to the custom cutouts, to the paint schemes, these bikes keep my hands and mind pretty occupied.

Andrew wanted sort of a hot rod aesthetic. I'll leave the motoring up to him.

If you see him around Southern California, see if you can catch up and check out that orange in the sun, in person.

Listening to The Evens alot.